Is American Horror Story: 1984 really a movie within a show?

The extra campy and strategically 80s start to American Horror Story: 1984 has fans theorizing that what we’ve seen so far is really a film.

American Horror Story has a history of dipping into wild storytelling courtesy of Ryan Murphy’s flair for the strange. Notably, American Horror Story: Roanoke was gifted with the unusual storyline of a horror encounter that a couple experienced turned documentary followed by a reality tv show. And though we are only two episodes into the latest season, fans are speculating that the reality versus TV plot is happening again.

Spoiler alert! Proceed with caution spoilery details on AHS:1984 first two episodes ahead.

The difference is that fans believe that American Horror Story: 1984 is going to explore a movie versus reality narrative. Cosmopolitan has confirmed that several Reddit users have been expanding on how American Horror Story:1984 could really be a movie. The idea is that what we’ve seen so far is the film played by actors. And that at a later time, we will be introduced to the real-life actors playing their parts in Hollywood. This is all speculation at this point, but the supporting clues are pretty convincing.

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Reddit users posited that the show is seemingly too campy even for Ryan Murphy’s standards giving it a fictitious edge. Cosmo even added how the AHS intro is set up to suggest that you are watching the show on a retro TV that is covered in blood. Even Richard Ramirez’s teeth are a clue for this theory since the real-life Ramirez had atrocious teeth and the show failed to give the character this trait and opted for a movie star attractive killer.

Finally, there was a callback to AHS: Roanoke when Blake mentioned the phrase “Gay for pay” while in the car with Xavier. This same phrase is said by Cricket while in the backseat of a car on AHS: Roanoke. While that could just be a callback for the sake of tipping a hat to a prior season, it is worthing of noting that its a reference to the season that launched the double reality story.

I would like to personally add more suspicious clues that support the theory that American Horror Story:1984 is a movie. When Blake’s dead body is discovered, and the counselors poke him for any signs of life, Ray refers to him as “dead, dead.” In today’s popular internet slang, saying a word twice for emphasis is a thing. Clearly, this is not the way that anyone would have spoken in the 80s but it could be written into the script of a movie.

Another clue is the actual promos leading to the show. They all featured people who are not on the show and we are still missing some of the characters influenced by the horror tropes that were teased.

Finally, most of American Horror Story:1984‘s publicity was based on an homage to 80s horror that almost imitated Friday the 13th complete with a masked killer. But Mr. Jingles and The Night Stalker are unmasked assailants that don’t care to hide their identity. So, where is our masked serial killer, and where are they hiding him?

Should American Horror Story introduce a movie versus reality surprise twist and show us that we’ve been watching a film all along, the real-life killer could be a masked person that we have yet to meet.

American Horror Story: 1984 airs every Wednesday at 10 PM ET on FX.